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Heracleon and the Hermeneutics of Prepositions: Interpreting ˆen 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 37 Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 60(1-4), 37-49. doi: 10.2143/JECS.60.1.2035274 © 2008 by Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. All rights reserved. HERACLEON AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF PREPOSITIONS: INTERPRETING ˆEN ANNEWIES VAN DEN HOEK* Adelbert Davids is distinguished not only for his studies in the field of Byzan- tine theology and the relationship between East and West but also for his interest in earlier phases of Christianity – after all he taught the whole spec- trum of Christian history from antiquity to modern times and published studies on 1 Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Bardesanes, Cyprian, and Pseudo-Basil, just to name a few. The present contribution deals with a seemingly trivial aspect of early Christian hermeneutics, namely the use of prepositions and prepositional phrases in theological debates. It is offered as a small token for my appreci- ation of the broad scholarly reach of my “doctor father” and of his continu- ous friendship over the years. In his vast arsenal of biblical ammunition, Clement of Alexandria presents two quotations from Heracleon, an author who preceded him by a genera- tion or two.1 Very little is known about Heracleon and his whereabouts, * Annewies van den Hoek teaches Greek and Latin at Harvard Divinity School. 1 For recent studies of Heracleon, see Ansgar Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus. Gnos- tische Johannesexegese im zweiten Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 2002). Michael Kaler and Marie- Pierre Bussières, ‘Was Heracleon a Valentinian? A New Look at Old Sources’, Harvard Theological Review, 99 (2006), pp. 275-289. For the extant fragments of Heracleon: A.E. Brooke, The Fragments of Heracleon (Cambridge, 1891); for the sources in Antiquity refer- ring to Heracleon: Brooke, Fragments, pp. 31-41. W. Völker, Quellen zur Geschichte der christlichen Gnosis (Tübingen, 1932), p. 63-86 (text of Preuschen). For older literature: Antonio Orbe, Los primeros herejes ante la persecucion, Analecta Gregoriana, 83 (Rome, 1956), pp. 1ff. Y. Janssens, ‘Héracléon. Commentaire sur l'évangile de Jean’, Le Muséon, 72 (1959), pp. 100-151; 277-299. Manlio Simonetti, ‘Eracleone e Origene’, Vetera Chris- tianorum, 3 (1966), pp. 11-141; 4 (1967), pp. 23-64. Elaine H. Pagels, The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon’s Commentary on John (Nashville - New York, 1973). Domenico Devoti, ‘Antropologia e storia della salvezza in Eracleone’, Memoria della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, serie V (Torino, 1978), pp. 1-83. G.A. Bernadelli, Tertulliano, Scorpiace, Biblioteca patristica, 14 (Firenze, 1990), pp. 22-24 and 264-265. Manlio Simonetti, Testi Gnostici in Lingua Greca e Latina (Vicenza, 1993), pp. 223-267. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 38 38 ANNEWIES VAN DEN HOEK except for forty-eight quotations from his Commentary on the Gospel of John, which are included in the commentary on that gospel by Origen. Two quo- tations from different commentaries appear in Clement, and a short passage is included in a letter of Photius.2 Some hearsay remarks are also reported in the writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian and Ps. Hippolytus, but these authors do not quote Heracleon’s words directly.3 Since Clement and Origen provide the best evidence, it seems possible that Heracleon, like them, may have been active in Alexandria at one time. The works that they knew well enough to quote verbatim could have been transmitted through libraries or other collections of writings in that city. Her- acleon’s philological methods also show a close relationship with the Alexan- drian environment. From the surviving fragmentary evidence, he appears to have been a meticulous reader and text critic of the Scriptures; every inflec- tion, every syllable, and every dot seem to have been analyzed. Because of his philological interests modern scholars have identified him as the first Chris- tian philologist and given him the epithet “Heracleon Philologus”.4 His taste for the letter of biblical text, however, is balanced with a healthy dose of alle- gorical or spiritual interpretation, through which he is able to stretch the lit- erary boundaries as much as necessary for his hermeneutical acrobatics.5 An argument typical of Heracleon’s often-convoluted grammatical analy- ses turns around the preposition “in” (ên) as it is used in two passages. The first example is transmitted through Clement’s Stromateis.6 Clement first pre- 2 In addition to a commentary on the Gospel of John, Heracleon may have written a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew or Luke, see the fragments preserved in Clement, Str. IV 70-72 (Brooke, fr. 50), and Ecl. 25 (Brooke, fr. 49). 3 Clement (Str. IV 71, 1) calls him the most famous of the Valentinian school, and Origen (Io.Com II XIV 100) mentions him as someone who was said to be a pupil of Valentinus. Irenaeus (Adv.Haer. II 4, 1) refers to him in the company of Ptolemaeus, while Tertullian (Adv.Valent. 4) mentions him in the context of Valentinian teachings. Ps. Hippolytus (Ref.Omn.Haer. 6, 35) links him and Ptolemaeus to the “Italic” Valentinian school. 4 See the title of Wucherpfennig’s book and his chapter on Heracleon’s Commentary of John in the tradition of Hellenistic philology (Heracleon Philologus, pp. 372-381). 5 See, for example, fr. 18; and Annewies van den Hoek, ‘Origen's Role in Formulating Later Christological Language: The Case of ânákrasiv’, in Origeniana Septima. Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhunderts, eds. W. A. Bienert and U. Kühneweg (Leuven, 1999), pp. 40-43. 6 Clement, Str. IV 72, 1-3 = Heracleon, fr. 50 (Brooke). 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 39 HERACLEON AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF PREPOSITIONS 39 sents a selection of gospel sayings around the topic of martyrdom, as a basis for further discussion (Luke 12,8-9, Mark 8,38, Matthew 10,32-33, and Luke 12,11-12). These passages were also the core elements in Heracleon’s subsequent passage, which were probably drawn from his commentary on the gospel of Luke or Matthew, and it is likely that Clement made his selection inspired by the selection from Heracleon.7 The discussion turns around sal- vation and the conduct of people in times of persecution. Central is the ques- tion of what value a confession before a public tribunal has, as opposed to a confession expressed through faith and conduct. Heracleon wants to limit the verbal confession to being a partial vehicle of salvation while giving full credit to those who lived a faithful life throughout. He argues his viewpoint through the words of Matthew and Luke, ‘everyone who confesses in me’, and ‘who- ever denies me’, and sees a major theological distinction between the two phrases. ‘It (scripture) rightly used the word “in me” for those who confess and applied the word “me” for those who deny. For those, even if they confess him with their voice, deny him since they don’t confess in their conduct. Only they confess in him who live according to him in confession and conduct, in whom he also con- fesses, holding them and being held by them. Therefore “he never can deny him- self”,8 but they deny him who are not in him. For he did not say, he who will deny in me, but me. For nobody who is in him denies him…’.9 Although it may not immediately be clear to the modern reader why Heracleon puts so much emphasis on the distinction “in me” and “me”, Clement does not question the interpretation for its details. He even agrees with Heracleon about his reading of the pericopes.10 He only faintly ques- tions Heracleon’s skepticism about oral confessions in front of tribunals but wants to give equal value to both groups: those who have lived consis- tently a faithful life and those who express their faith publicly and on the spot. 7 As Irenaeus and Tertullian show, this group of biblical texts was already part of an anti- heretical discourse on martyrdom; Irenaeus, Adv.Haer. III 18, 5; Tertullian, Scorpiace, 9- 11. 8 2 Tim. 2,13. 9 Clement, Str. IV 72, 1-3 = Heracleon, fr. 50 (Brooke). 10 See Str. IV 73, 1. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 40 40 ANNEWIES VAN DEN HOEK Heracleon puts great emphasis on the difference between “in me” and “me” in the first instance because of a linguistic problem in Greek. The verb ömologéw can be construed in various ways: the verb may take a dative (but without a preposition) to express agreement: “to agree” or “to correspond with”. It takes a genitive to mean: “to be suitable for”, and an accusative to express: “to grant”, “to acknowledge”, or “to confess.” None of these exam- ples have a preposition in their configuration, and for the meaning evidently intended in the passage (“to confess”), ömologéw should have been followed by an accusative without preposition. LSJ noticed the anomaly and made the parenthetical remark that: ‘ömologéw ên tini Ev. Matt. 10, 32 appears to be an Aramaism’. Taking this one step further: the equivalent in Hebrew is possibly the cor- relative verb edi (“to confess, praise, give thanks”), which regularly takes the preposition b and sometimes l, and conforms nicely to the Greek ên (b) in Matthew and Luke.11 For Greek speakers the additional preposition ên with the verb ömologéw must have hurt their ears, but they would have found it hard to amend since the idiom occurred in the gospel text itself. The usage of ömologéw ên has not escaped the attention of New Testament scholars either, who have commented extensively on its Semitic background. Some have also suggested that a “Christian” line of thought might lie behind it, since both Christian and Jewish beliefs imply faith “in” someone.12 Be this as it may, there is no indication that the expression ömologéw ên ever took root in the Greek-speaking Christian world.
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